Just wanted to give a brief update on the whirlwind that is my life in the video games industry. Back in March I started working for Level-5 IA and got engaged! Between planning the wedding, work and trying to further sharpen my C# knowledge, I haven't had as much time to blog or do as much research as I would have liked. Though I plan on getting back into blogging regularly, it will be some time until I'm able to get around to it again. Until then I found another Game Design blog which I think is excellent, Stanislav 'Farlander' Costiuc. He goes really in depth into design concepts and does videos which are easy to follow. Check him out!

Aside from that I'm preparing for E3. I'll be going all three days this year! So if you're going or just in the area feel free to reach out and we can grab a bite or get coffee.

Oh! And don't forget to check back here as well from time to time! I'll be back soon enough.

Whoa! Time does fly! It’s already been a few years since I started this blog. Just like last year, I’m doing a 2016 year in review! Today I’d like to take a look back at some of my favorite post from the last year.

I’d like to highlight three articles which I believe are my best work of the year. Additionally, I’d like to give an honorable mention to one of the most exciting moments of my year.

1. Pokemon GO! Series

Okay, I know I’m cheating right out of the gate but technically I think these should be highlighted as a group. In this four part series, we start by understanding the basic functionality and mechanics of Pokemon Go. In part two, we discuss gym battles and the problems plaguing them. Part 3 is one of my most popular posts of the year, it deals with how Pokemon are distributed and located around the planet. We finish up discussing the economy of Pokemon go and how it affects the players.

2. Game Design Analysis – Disney Magic Kingdoms

This analysis breaks down the game Disney Magic Kingdoms. We discuss everything from the basic mechanics and to quest functionality to the economy and rewards. This is one of the most popular pieces on the site today.

3. The Dark Zone Versus the Prisoner’s Dilemma

This piece discusses the Division, more specifically the dark zone and how it relates to the Prisoner’s Dilemma. This is the piece I’ve had more comments and heat over than any other piece I’ve written.

Honorable mention:

Boss Battle Gamecast Guest – Ep. 48

This was an exciting opportunity for me! I had the honor of being a guest on the Boss Battle Gamescast. We discussed the industry, what I’m up to now and so much more. Check it out when you get some time!

If you don't have time to stream it now, feel free to download it for future listening at the Raptor cow website HERE

With that said I’d like to thank you. Your comments have helped me to improve these posts. I’d like to give an extra big thank you to everyone who stuck around since 2015. I know I haven’t been the most active over the course of the last few months. I appreciate your patience and thank you for sticking around. I’ll be doing more posts in the New Year and I should have some big news in the coming months. I hope you had an excellent 2015 and that 2016 will be even better.

I’ll see you guys next time,

Scott

P.S. If you're new (Welcome!) and wanted to check out 2015's year in review it can be found HERE

We’re taking it easy this week, as I wanted to try something new after that marathon of Pokémon Go posts. As a result, I’m taking the week off to learn a little bit about video editing to see what I can pull together in place of a blog post. If it doesn’t work out, I’ll have a new post up next week anyways. I’ll just break down it into my usual analysis style post instead.

To prepare for next week, I’d love to hear your thoughts on excellent and memorable boss designs. I’ll be looking into Destiny’s Darkblade boss fight, and I want to compare it to other strike bosses within Destiny.

This week, we’re going to finish our look into Pokémon Go. Today, we’ll be discussing the flow of the economy and leveling up. We will talk about how these two work and how they affect the player’s experience. If you haven’t read my last couple posts on Pokémon Go, I recommend checking them out! While they aren’t necessary to understand the concepts we will be discussing today, they will help to give a broader picture of the game and how the individual functions work. They can be found at:

So we know how stardust works, and here we can see how it flows. Players stay engaged by constantly looping through this cycle. The flow of stardust never quite stops so long as the player is moving around and catching pokémon. Essentially, they’ll continue to gain stardust and candy so long as they continue playing the game.

But let’s take a look at a less common currency.

Coins are used exclusively to purchase items. Now, there are two ways to obtain coins:

● Players are rewarded 10 coins for every gym held when they redeem their reward

● Players can purchase coins with real world money

This ability to obtain the premium currency in-game is becoming more and more prominent in mobile games. If you look at something like Disney Magic Kingdom (More on that game HERE), we see that they give away the premium currency as well, but at an incredibly low rate. When designing this kind of system, players have to believe that it is a viable alternative to purchasing premium currency in real life. For example, currently in Pokémon Go, a player can purchase 1 incense Item for 80 coins. If the player holds a gym, they gain 10 coins. Thus, if they redeem one gym reward each day, they’ll have enough for one incense eight days later. For the casual player, this isn’t so bad due to how easy it is for players to take a gym, and they’re not playing the game as frequently. For the more hardcore player, they’re going to want the items much faster.

If we examine the flowchart, we can see that the player never really escapes this loop. Because once they purchase and use the one use item, they’re back in it again constantly trying to get stronger. But due to the game’s objective (Gotta catch ‘em all!), when the player doesn’t want to wait or take the time to build up to obtain the item in game, they can purchase it right then and there. This way, the player doesn’t feel like they’re being taken advantage of, and the developer can still have in app purchases without there being a huge hullabaloo.

This balancing act is incredibly important in the mobile scene. Once players start to feel like they’re being nickeled and dimed, they’re going to think just a little bit harder before spending their real world money in-game. That could result in a few players pausing just long enough to reconsider making the purchase.

Let’s talk about powering up the pokémon and how this actually scales to increase the difficulty over time. Based on trainer’s level, a pokémon will have a max CP that they will be able to reach. When the player levels up, the max raises as well. This way the game can keep trainers from just leveling up one pokémon to super high levels and further forces the player to catch a variety of pokémon. It typically costs X stardust and 1 candy to level up a weak pokémon. But what happens when the pokémon’s strength reaches about ¾ of the max?

The price goes up. Instead of only costing one candy, it costs two. This is an interesting twist because it makes players less likely to have max level pokémon due to the increased price. Because this has an effect on all evolution levels of pokémon, it also encourages players to evolve pokémon. An additional reason to evolve them would be a higher power cap.

This Primeape is a second evolution. It evolves from a Mankey. The Golem is a third evolution, and it evolves from a Graveler, which in turn evolves from a Geodude. If we compare the two, we can see that their power levels are about an equal percent to their max. We can also see that a Golem is clearly more powerful than a Primeape. This reinforces the idea that players should focus on using third level evolutions because they will always be stronger.

Side note: This is actually one design choice I heavily disagree with. Primeape is the final evolution of Mankey, but is going to be at a disadvantage against many other pokémon because it can’t evolve as high. The game expressly discriminates against all the pokémon who don’t evolve, or evolve only to the second form. While I like the system of pokémon evolutions raising the cap, I feel as if the second level evolutions should be able to reach the same point as the third level evolutions. Or even the pokémon, like Onix, who don’t evolve (In O.G. Pokémon, I know in the expanded universe he evolves into Steelix). This could be supplemented by making them cost an additional candy to power up when they reach the ½ and ¾ power point. It honestly just feels unbalanced having it work the way it does.

Pokémon Go is an interesting experience. It’s been a pleasure to pick it apart. I really hope you enjoyed looking into this very different mobile game with me. I’ve gotten a lot of requests asking about what my personal thoughts on the game are. Honestly, the only experience I find to actually be done particularly well is the catching of pokémon. But, I mean, the whole game is based around that so I guess it turned out well. It seems like they’ve got a strong core with the other mechanics within the game feeding back into the most fun part. So even though it is an incredibly shallow experience, probably wouldn’t do well if it wasn’t pokémon themed, and is broken half the time, it’s not terrible. The designers were able to figure out the most fun part of pokémon and streamline the process for mobile. So all I can say is good job, you guys made a hell of a game. The world will be watching Niantic’s next move very closely.